'Arty', had a nightmare. How could I tell? Well... let's just say my ears hurt, and leave it at that.

Upon closer inspection, she was crying, and screaming. I started shaking her gently, just to wake her up, when I noticed a far off sound. I saw a few black dots in the distance, closing in fast.

'Arty' had stopped screaming, just sobbing every now and again. She still hadn't woken up, then I knew what those far off shapes were.

A patrol. More specifically, a monster patrol. And we weren't ready to fight.

I immediately set up 'Arty' against the tree we slept under, then I noticed a far off cave, no more than 120 meters away. I calculated that I had less than 2 minutes to get there.

First I got on my horse, then roped 'Arty's' around the neck. This made getting there and roping the horses down, take less then 30 seconds. Then I ran back, 40 seconds, and picked up 'Arty' and ran like I was about to die, which was probably true, if we didn't get there in time. I made it with less than 2 seconds to spare.

After ducking me and 'Arty' down, the monsters were already at our camp. Luckily, I hadn't made any tracks for them to follow, another useful lesson from Colin.

There were these, lizard things scouting the camp. They had a small sword, and shield equipped, and they were flanked by a few boblins. They sniffed around a bit, then wandered off.

I let out a sigh, and leaned against the cave wall. Then I noticed that 'Arty' was awake, she had cleaned herself up a bit, but she still had very evident puffs of red under her eyes. 'Arty' was staring at me, with a look of... curiosity, again. Then she said,

"What happened?"

I explained everything to the best of my abilities, leaving out that she was crying, and by the end she looked embarrassed.

"I- I'm sorry that I got you in trouble. Here,"

Then she handed me a rag,

"Your looking pretty sweaty."

I went to the back of the cave to take off my tunic, it stuck like glue at this point. 'Arty' went outside to give me some privacy.

After a few minutes, I came out pretty refressed, then to the after stretching. Oh, you know how you stretch after excersize? That's what Colin called it. Just normal toe touching, and the like. Then you end with a back flip.

She was looking at me like I was crazy.

"What are you doing?"

"Umm... Stretching."

I kinda felt like an idiot, we could be attacked at any time, then she said,

"Well, I suppose an explanation is in order."

At this point, I didn't feel that I had to know, at least for now.

"It's ok Arty, you don't have to explain everything to me. One thing though,"

She looked at me at first with a look like, why, then switched to curiosity.

"What's your real name?"

She looked at me with wide eyes. Like its the one thing that she didn't expect me to say. Though, she had wide eyes, so I knew that I was right. 'Arty' wasn't her name.

"Umm... it's... Lozen. Though, I just wanted everyone to call me Arty. I just thought it would be easier... Though it sounds kinda stupid now."

That's one heck of a name. So I asked,

"What does it mean?"

"It pretty much means thief."

"Thank you for telling me. My name just means, link. Literally, like chain links. Though, I've never stole anything yet, I did learn how to. Just in case.

She smiled at that, and we just ate... brunch? In a comfortable silence.

Then we headed through the casam, that would lead us to the east bridge.

Time to gain information.